Why Do People Relapse after Years of Not Smoking?

The key to lasting freedom from this addiction lies in changing your relationship to smoking. If you quit smoking by sheer will power, believing somewhere in the back of your mind that you’re sacrificing something good, chances are very high that you’ll eventually relapse. You might be able to abstain for years and years, but you’ll find yourself missing smoking and thinking of it as a fix when times of stress or other potential triggers come along. However, if you do the work necessary to change how you think about your smoking habit, you’ll find your freedom, and you won’t have to struggle to maintain it.

That’s all fine and well you’re probably saying, but HOW to make that change?

Be A Sponge

All smokers know that smoking is bad. We all know that it causes emphysema, lung cancer, and a thousand other diseases. In order to continue smoking in the face of this harsh reality, we all had ways of compartmentalizing our habit. Otherwise, smoking would have caused so much fear and discomfort, we wouldn’t have been able to do continue doing it. We’d tell ourselves we had years before we needed to worry. We’d rationalize that smoking light cigarettes was better for our health. We’d say that smoking disease happens to other people, not us. We had a hundred ways to rationalize smoking.

Eventually though, the smokescreen wears so thin that the scales tip in the other direction, which is usually when people quit. Once that happens, it’s time to take a good look at all of the issues surrounding smoking. Learning everything you can about the dangers as well as what to expect when you quit will go a long way toward helping you start to make that permanent change of attitude that we’re talking about.

When I quit smoking, I was a full four months into my quit before I could look at pictures of smoking-related disease. I just was not ready before that, but when the time came that I could face it, those graphics did a lot to strengthen my resolve. Education is an important part of the process that will release you from this killer of an addiction. Be a sponge and soak up everything you can find about smoking/quitting.

Attitude Adjustment

Obviously, a good attitude helps us more than a bad attitude. There’s more to it though than just positive thinking. Truly changing your attitude when it comes to this process involves retraining how you think. For most of us, it involves conscious effort and plenty of practice.

Begin by paying close attention to the literally thousands of thoughts floating through your mind on a daily basis. Capture negative thoughts as they arise and change or “retrain” them on the spot. You may not believe what you’re telling yourself at first, but do it anyway. One of the lovely things about the way our minds work is that we tend to believe what we tell ourselves. Take advantage of that and feed yourself a steady diet of good, solid information about the realities of smoking. For instance, if you’re thinking:

I may as well give up. I’ve been smoke free for months now and I still miss smoking every now and then. I’ll never be free.

Tell yourself:

I need to be patient with myself. I smoked for a lot of years and it takes time to reprogram the hundreds associations to smoking I’ve built up. I know that cravings are signs of healing.

If you think:

Smoking made life more pleasant. It relaxed me and helped me cope.

Tell yourself:

Smoking was slowly killing me. Addiction to nicotine actually created most of the anxiety I felt. Smoking only relieved the physical withdrawal I experienced when the nicotine level in my bloodstream dropped. I can cope so much better without smoking than I ever did with it.

Changing the way we think isn’t a miracle that just happens to us. We do the work to make the changes by paying attention to errant thoughts and making appropriate adjustments. If you notice your attitude is making a shift for the worse, this is the way to pull it back into line.

Be patient with yourself and allow for the time it takes to heal from this addiction. As you make your way through the first year, you will have experienced most of the situations in regular everyday life that trigger thoughts of smoking. Once faced, these triggers lose power. This all takes time and practice.

You are in the driver’s seat with your quit. Our actions are always within our control. Do the work to change your relationship to smoking and you will find the permanent freedom you want so badly. It’s doable AND you have the ability to make it happen for yourself.

First, say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. Health Service Food and Human Resources: Here …

Famous quotes

The only ’safer’ cigarette is your last one.Duane Alan Hahn
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You own yourself, so if you want to do something that destroys yourself, go ahead. Just don’t harm others when you do.Jim Goebel
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To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or of principle.Confucius
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If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer. Clement Freud
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Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.King James I of England
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Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life. Brooke Shields
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I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It cost a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s a fantastic brand loyalty.Warren Buffett
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If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer. Clement Freud
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Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.Mark TwainRead more stop smoking quotes